Financial Control And Accountability In Public Sector Organisation

Financial Control And Accountability In Public Sector Organisation

Abstract

The primary concern then’s to identify to what extent good account system in the Public Sector can insure Financial Control and Responsibility in the Public sector Financial or is a critical factor in operation and thus must be prudently handled and reckoned for if the public sector is to realize its pretensions and objects. It’s on this account that this exploration work has been accepted to try and unravel the reasons why government ministries and department utmost times finds it delicate to control and duly regard for finances available to them. latterly, a number of reasons have been derived as being responsible for poor fiscal control and responsibility. They include; Poor perpetration of fiscal regulations, lack of effective internal control system, shy price system and sharp practices by public retainers. The Abia State Ministry of Finance was used as case study, and information was sourced through tried population in the Ministry by means of questionnaire. Data was collected, anatomized and interpreted using tables and ki- forecourt. Findings showed that unless fiscal regulations are rigorously followed and defaulters penalized consequently, fiscal control and accountably may still scape the public sector.

Chapter One

Preface

Background Of The Study

Government conditioning currently have largely increase. The increase in government functions and conditioning come as a result of the complex nature of the ultramodern society. For government to live up to its responsibility, care must be taken in the operation of dread coffers available to achieve these estimable pretensions.

Other than conservation of law and orders, peace and stability, government is also involved in furnishing social services similar as provision of good roads, transport, movable drinking water, power and energy etc. All these services need plutocrat( finance). It’s also the duty of government to induce profit for the achievement of its set pretensions and objects- creating social weal and harmony in the society.

Finance is a critical resource in the chain of product and thus must be prudently used to achieve results. It’s on this premise that fiscal control and responsibility in public sector becomes imperative. This exploration work attempts to discover the reason( s) behind poor performance by government in relation to fiscal control and responsibility in the public sector.

Government agencies or the public sector is veritably miscellaneous in nature and so the nature of fiscal control is fully different from that of the private sectors in so numerous ways. At one end we’ve government possessed companies that must be operated like private business, in the middle, our parastatal, that are kindly unformed, frequently having clashing pretensions to achieve and also the government ministry itself which is a services outfit,( Azubuike and Njemanze 2006, 15)

Accordingly upon the miscellaneous nature of the public sector, the fiscal regulations guiding the conditioning or fiscal sale in public sector is contained in the law setting it up. Some of similar fiscal statutory regulations are

Finance( Control an operation) Act 1958

b. The Nigerian Constitution

Financial Memorandum

fiscal Regulation

review

Treasury and indirect Letter

Account primer.

These nonsupervisory frame of public sector account mentioned over are applied in varied ways depending on the mode of operation of the government agencies or ministry.

Amara( 2009) sums up the benefit of fiscal control and responsibility in the public sector as follows

– It justifies the estimates of public sector.

– It ensures and superintends the use of appropriated finances

– It’s device for timing the rate of expenditure and auditing of accounts

In the same tone, Johnson( 1999) also list a number of significance associated with fiscal control and responsibility to include the following.

1. That it provides the broad and specific account system espoused in recording fiscal deals.

2. insure that deals remain within the frame of law and farther reduces the threat of fraud

3. It provides the base for fiscal operation and control

The Abia state Ministry of finance is one of the parent ministries in the Abia State Government. The state governor is the principal account officer of the state. He’s the administrative head of government and head of the administrative council of the administrative arm of government.

As the minister of finance is the principal account officer in the civil ministry, the manager is also the principal account officer in Abia State finance Ministry outside the endless clerk. The ministry has other departments and units, some of which include Auditing department, board of internal profit, statistics and record, accounts unit, budget and logistics among others.

The ministry of finance is in charge of rendering accounts and controlling all fiscal deals. The ministry through the accountant- general of the state is ladened with responsibility of general supervision of all the accounts of the different ministries and departments within the state, and prepares the periodic fiscal statement of account of the state as needed by the ministry.

The finance Ministry is vested with the statutory responsibility of auditing the state accounts as handed by the fiscal regulations. The Adjudicator – general is empowered by law to inspection the account of all account officers and all persons entrusted with the collection, guardianship, bills, issues or payment of public finances,( Adams 2001).

Ministry of finance in the Abia State government is peopled with one hundred workers who make up pool of the ministry. These are the people who are responsible for icing compliance with the laid down procedure for fiscal deals as contained in the fiscal regulations and legal books

Statement Of Research Problem

Nigerian Public Sector is agonized with a number of problems. These problems hamper it from discharging its duties and liabilities effectively and efficiently for the betterment of the people. One of similar problem is that of fiscal control and responsibility.

fiscal control and responsibility becomes a problem when there’s no strict measure to insure compliance with the laid down regulations guiding fiscal sale and responsibility in public sector. In other words, the lack of defense of estimate, superintending the use of appropriated finances and timing the rate of expenditure and auditing of account constitute the problems which triggers this disquisition

In addition to the over mentioned problems, other problematic areas in the public sector finance includes

· Fraudulent practices by public officer and agencies.

· Maintaining and operating proper account system as needed by law.

· shy internal system in each unit.

· Problem of poor collaboration

Objects Of The Study

Within the dimension of this exploration content, “ fiscal control and responsibility in Public Sector ”, The purpose of study isn’t far brought. The purposes of the study can be epitomized in these ways

a). To determine ways of checking fraud.

b). To ascertain to what extent compliance with fiscal regulations can help government in achieving set pretensions and objects.

c) To establish standard and applicable fiscal system for recording and rooting fiscal information.

Significance Of The Study

This exploration work will be of immense benefit to those in the top operation skeleton in the government ministries and parastatals and to the general public. For top operation, the information gained from this work will help them streamline their fiscal regulation and help in fraud discovery. Secondly, youthful experimenters will also find the result of this, work a veritably useful coffers material for work. This is so because the information have given them the introductory knowledge demanded to pursue their work to a logical conclusion. On a more general note, the exploration will also add to the being body of knowledge in the subject matter.

Conclusively, this work will as a matter of fact help public associations know whether or not they’ve applicable control medium in terms of expedient operation and fraud discovery.

Exploration Suppositions

Research thesis are conditional statement of propositions made about the exploration in a testable or empirical manner. The term “ empirical ” or “ testable ” as used then mean that thesis can be accepted or rejected.

thus, the following exploration suppositions are formulated grounded on the exploration problems stated above

Ho1 Fraudulent practices by public retainers isn’t a interference to achievement of public sector pretensions and objects.

H1 Fraudulent practices by public retainers is a interference to achievement of public sector pretensions and objects.

thesis II

Ho Maintaining and operating proper account system as needed by law isn’t a means of icing fiscal control and responsibility.

H1 Maintain and operating proper account system as needed by law is a means of icing fiscal control and responsibility.

thesis III

Ho Internal control system doesn’t contribute to fiscal control and operation.

H1 Internal control system contributes in fiscal control and operation.

Theoretical Frame

The public sector account generalities are multitudinous. For this exploration work, the most applicable conception or proposition on which this exploration can be dissect is the matching conception of government account.

Matching proposition of government account holds that for any account period, the earned profit and all the incurred cost that induce that profit must be matched and reported for the period( Oshisam 1992). This conception only applies to profitable unit in the public sector, which seeks the determination of profit or adopts the accrued base of account( Adams 2001)

In other words, the matching conception of government account means that cost and charges should be tied to the profit and its associated costs and expenditure are reckoned for in the same account period. This conception shortly explains fiscal responsibility in the public sector.

Compass Of The Study

The exploration work is aimed at examining the effect of fiscal control and responsibility in the public sector. On this account, a case study of Abia State Ministry of Finance is chosen. thus is demarcated to Abia State Ministry of Finance alone.

Exploration Questions

To what extent strict compliance with fiscal regulations can help government ministries in achieving pretensions and objects.

ii. How does fiscal control check fraud in government circles?

iii. How can fiscal control and responsibility aid in establishing applicable system for recording and rooting fiscal information.

iv. To what extent does responsibility insure judicious use of public finances?

Functional Description Of Terms

According to Aguwa( 2005), the primary thing of functional description is to remove nebulosity wherever it’s likely to do in the exploration work. thus where there’s no liability of nebulosity, it becomes gratuitous to define terms. The specialized or nebulous terms used in this work are the only bones being defined.

MANAGEMENT For the purpose of this exploration, operation means or connotes ‘ the condition of being prudent in the use of scarce coffers.

Responsibility Responsibility in this exploration work is considered as the quality of being answerable to one’s action or conduct.

CONTROL Control means icing that the functions of the different unit and agents in the public sector don’t work at cross purposes but in meter to insure achievement of commercial pretensions.

INTERNAL CONTROL Auditing guideline defines internal control as “ the whole system of controls, fiscal and else established by operation in order to carry out government business ”

GOVERNMENT FINANCES Government finance refers to the wide range of conditioning accepted by government in fiscal and profitable matters( The new Encyclopedia Britannica 1988).

ETHICS Ethics simply put refers to what’s ‘ right ’, just and what ‘ just ’ in the opinions and conduct that affects other people as a fiscal or accounting officer or director in the public sector.